Who owns the farm? Rural women’s access to land and livestock: the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)

Land and livestock are considered to be key assets for rural livelihoods, yet little is known about the factors that enable or constrain different women’s access to these, what ownership mean in practice nor about women who come forward to claim these rights. This study of rural villages Badakshan, Bamiyan and Kabul province sought to examine these issues in greater depth. The findings show that while women in the study villages (who represented a range of religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds) have a great deal of involvement in agriculture, few own land or livestock themselves. Where women were found to own either asset, most women were able to use them productively , through their level of control over those assets varied. Moreover, this study found that though the numbers of women who claim rights to land and livestock are not great, they were surprisingly higher than anticipated, with poverty and a sense of not being cared for by family being major reasons why women state those claims.